ELECTRICAL PISHES; GYMNOTUS. 19 



540. It is the Gymnotus, or Electric Eel, which possesses 

 this curious power in the highest 

 degree. It inhabits Southern 

 America ; and very much resem- 

 bles ordinary Eels, except that 

 it has no fins at the end of its 

 tail, and that its skin is without 

 any visible scales. This fish at- 

 tains about six feet in length ; its 

 body is long, and of uniform size, 

 and its skin is covered with a 

 viscid matter. It is very com- 



., ,, , FIG. 262. GYMNOTUS. 



mon m the small streams and 



pools, which are met with here and there in the immense plains 

 situated between the Cordilleras, the Orinoco, and the Banda- 

 Orientalis of South America ; and we find it also in the rivers 

 Meta, Apure, and Orinoco. The electric shocks which it gives 

 at pleasure, and in any direction that it chooses, are sufficient 

 to overcome men and horses ; and the Gymnotus has recourse to 

 this means to defend itself against its enemies, and to kill at a 

 distance the fish that it wishes to eat ; for water, as well as 

 metals, transmits the benumbing shock of this singular animal, 

 in the same manner as lightning-conductors convey the elec- 

 tricity of the clouds from the atmosphere to the ground. Its 

 first discharges are in general weak ; but when it is irritated 

 and agitated, they become stronger and stronger, and are then 

 terrible. When it has thus struck repeated blows, it becomes 

 exhausted, and requires rest, for a longer or shorter time, before 

 it recovers its power of giving fresh shocks. We are told that it 

 employs this time in reloading its electrical organs, and that 

 the Americans profit by this circumstance to take it without 

 danger. In order to do this, they drive wild horses into the 

 ponds inhabited by these fish ; which, receiving their first shocks, 

 are soon stunned and overcome, or even killed ; they then seize 

 the exhausted Gymnoti with nets, or with harpoons. 



541. The apparatus by which the Gymnotus produces these 

 disturbances lies along the back of the tail, and consists of 



c 2 



